60 Years Speedway Motors Anniversary Tribute T

You know you're near the end of a project when you seem to spend $50 every day at the hardware or autoparts store on seemingly insignificant small parts. That's the point we're at now with our Speedway Motors R&C 60th Anniversary Tribute T. But let's back up a couple of weeks to when I was itching from sanding fiberglass, readying the body for paint.

The 'glass body as supplied from Speedway didn't need much in the way of bodywork, as it was very straight to begin with, though a couple of mold separation marks needed a skim of filler, seeing as the body was going to be black! Taking care not to sand away the sharp edges of the swage lines, the whole body was block sanded with 180-grit, prior to receiving three coats of Eastwood's urethane primer. I then painted the firewall using the same color I'd painted the engine block before delivering the body to fellow Brit, Chris Ashworth, owner of Romance With Rust, a local auto restoration and fabrication shop, for final prep and paint.

As you can see, Romance With Rust's Osmar Mata did a superb job prepping, painting, color sanding, and polishing the body and pickup bed, using Eastwood products throughout. Meanwhile, I was back in our shop installing the Lokar shifter and emergency brake, driveshaft, fuel pump, battery, and fabricating fuel and trans cooler lines, in between runs to the hardware and parts store! With everything done that would either be much harder, or that I wouldn't be able to do with the body on—such as installing the Lokar trans dipstick and kickdown cable, and the body polished—I applied a rubberized coating to the underside, and bolted the body down for the final time, pleased that the shifter and e-brake came through their respective holes centrally! The T is at the upholstery shop as I write this, leaving wiring, the addition of fluids, final checks on all fasteners and cotter pins, and wheelbase setting before it can be called "done". No doubt there'll be a few more parts runs somewhere in there too!

3/312. Assembled, the driveshaft was installed. We still need to add the pinion yoke U-bolts.

4/313. Lokar supplied not only the tall swan neck shifter and trans-mount emergency brake, but also the e-brake cables, gas pedal, throttle and kickdown cables, and trans dipstick.

5/314. The shifter installed on the trans, along with the e-brake. Note the bracket at the bottom of the latter, designed to accept the cables. This wouldn’t clear the floor of the T body, neither would the cables.

6/315. The solution was to repurpose the end of the bracket, which is threaded for the cables, form it to the crossmember, and bolt it in place. The cables now clear the floor. Note also the trans cooler lines have been fabricated and installed.

7/316. The Edelbrock fuel pump was bolted up, using a Hedman plate, not forgetting the pushrod. The pump can be clocked, though lack of clearance against the engine mount bracket and lower radiator hose plus the length of the Edelbrock braided fuel line meant this was the most practical position in this instance.

8/317. We sourced all the body prep materials, primer, and paint from Eastwood. Here I’m using a 120-grit DA disc on a flexible block to ensure I sand the gelcoat right into the edges of the body lines. An advantage of using a ’glass body is that the gelcoat can be block-sanded straight prior to priming.

9/318. The Speedway body really was exceptionally straight, with only very minor filler required, mainly at mold release lines.

10/319. With the filler spots sanded with 80-grit then 120-grit, we used Eastwood’s urethane primer with low-VOC activator to prime the body and pickup bed.

11/3110. The firewall was then painted using the same 2K paint we used on the engine block, then color sanded and buffed before the body was delivered to the paintshop to receive its black topcoat in a controlled environment.

12/3111. Romance With Rust took on the job of painting the Tribute T. Here Osmar Mata is wet sanding the primer with 600-grit on a flexible block after applying a black guidecoat.

13/3112. The final stage prior to paint was wet sanding with fine Scotch-Brite.

14/3113. The body cleaned and masked ready for paint. I mounted it on my Model A body dolly for ease of transport and workability.

15/3114. The pickup bed was also mounted to the dolly, but the guys at Romance With Rust decided to remove it to gain better access to the rear of the body.

16/3115. The body was prepped using Eastwood’s Pre Painting Prep aerosol, to ensure a clean surface.

17/3116. This was followed by wiping the surface with a tack rag, also sourced from Eastwood to remove any debris, lint, and dust particles.

18/3117. We used single-stage urethane to paint the T, with one of Eastwood’s HVLP Concours spray guns. This is supplied with 1.2, 1.4, and 1.8 nozzles.

19/3118. Once thoroughly stirred, the paint was poured into a mixing cup. Note the neat gizmo to stop paint running down the side of the can.

20/3119. The scale on the side of the mixing cup denotes how much activator and reducer should be added. In our case the ratio was 3:1:1, three parts paint to one part each of activator and reducer.

21/3120. Again, once mixed, the paint was poured into the paint gun through a strainer.

22/3121. Ideal for or hobbyist, the Concours gun requires only 4 cfm, with a working pressure of 29 psi. The needle, nozzle, and passages are stainless steel (the gun is aluminum), meaning it’s compatible with solvent or waterborne coatings.

23/3122. After four coats of paint, and while not yet fully cured, the fine-line masking tape around the edge of the cowl (the joint between black and white) was removed. The remainder of the masking would wait until the paint was cured to be removed.

24/3123. With the paint cured, Mata began the color-sanding process, first with 800-grit, then 1,000-grit, followed by 2,000- and 4,000-grit, lubricating the paper with water from a spray bottle.

25/3124. We’ve shown you the process of cutting and buffing in recent months, so we’ll skip to Mata polishing the paint using a foam pad.

26/3125. For intricate areas, such as the sides of the bed between the swage lines, a smaller, air-powered buffer was used.

27/3126. I’d installed the shifter and e-brake while the body was at the paint shop, so I had to cut access holes once it returned. After measuring carefully, I drilled a hole at each corner and used an air saw to cut out the required areas. The air line was draped over my shoulder so as not to scratch the fresh paint.

28/3127. With the body off the dolly and upside down, I scuffed the surface with a Scotch-Brite, and used Eastwood’s Rubberized Rust Ecapsulator to coat the underside.

29/3128. This is the textured surface once applied.

30/3129. While the 'glass tub obviously won’t ever rust, I opted to use the Rubberized Rust Encapsulator as it’ll offer better protection and insulation than regular paint would.

31/3130. The body and chassis about to be reunited for the final time …